Kingdom in the colors of wheat
by soshi185
Summary: She was like Persephone - taken to the Underworld and surrounded by monsters. But even in the dark she was able to find her own light. Because she shone like Persephone. Komugi & King Meruem.


So the characters that have not appeared yet in anime and Greek mythology, which is quite popular. It contains references to the myth about Hades and Persephone, but it is quite known and shouldn't cause any problem, even for those who aren't interested in myths :)

Fanfic contains spoilers for the end of the Chimera Arc. I do not recommend reading if you are anime only watcher, unless you are not afraid of spoilers :)

Of course Hunter x Hunter and mythology don't belong to me.

* * *

_Persephone was a child of nature. Born of mother-nature, the protector of flowers, the giver of life, she was a part of it, one of them. She was like a rose which puts down its roots in the soft soil, waiting for a complete union with a gentle pulse of the earth that trembled just beneath her feet._

_The touch was her tunnel, her perception. She felt the hairs of wheat irritating her sensitive hands when she walked through the lively fields._ _And only in those moments she felt as if she floated again in the amniotic fluid, warm and surrounding her from all sides. She hid in the high castle with impregnable walls. Her hot, golden fields of rising wheat were her refuge, her house, a part of her. The missing piece of the soul which was torn from her chest. Only now she could unite with it, hidden in the shadow of nature. Persephone could be freed from everything._

_..._

"Komugi" means "wheat", says her mother when she is combing her long hair. One by one, the hair between her fingers runs away like snakes, as if it wants to disappear as soon as it's possible and wash Komugi's back, like water. Mother also says that her hair is golden; gold wheat, gold sun, gold sand. But mostly it reminds her the color of cereals rising in the fields, swayed uneasily by the wind. In Komugi also lies some anxiety, continuous and indefinite movement, she says, that's why she gave her that name.

Komugi doesn't care because, in fact, she will never be able to understand mother's words in the full sense. It's just a word, a collection of letters and pronunciation and Komugi can't give it any meaning. No definition of the word "gold" changes the fact that blind Komugi will never see. That's what counts. Even her name is something that does not belong to her, it never will be. Given because of the reasons she doesn't understand, devoid of values that are important to her.

However, Komugi doesn't say it out loud. She lives in the countryside, close to a large field where wheat grows each year. Komugi can sense this time - the air gets heavier, it's harder for her to breathe, she starts coughing. From the sky pours terrible heat, it covers the earth like rain's abandoned twin brother who also wants to be noticed. Then the wheat blossoms and after few days it grows higher and higher, up to the sky.

Every year Komugi walks alone, just once. She abandons Gungi and goes ahead, her inner voice tells her where to go. This is the only time when she is not lost, as if it should be, as if it was already decided. Perhaps by her mother during her birth? Maybe by nature? Komugi doesn't know, but internally understands, so she stops only when the golden ears of wheat swallow her completely, when she is surrounded on all sides. As her mother told her everything vibrates, as if the plants pulsed. Komugi feels it, because touch is one of the few things that she can rely on. Wheat is delicate, it moves with every breath of wind, like Komugi. She breathes slowly, feeling the difference between _this_ air and _that_ air. Then two worlds mix together and Komugi is set between, where only she can be.

She feels a gold chain wrapping around her neck, connecting her with this place. No, not _place_, rather with the nature in general. Komugi still doesn't understand, but senses that her name will be linked to a story. That she can't be a daughter of nature and remain unnoticed.

...

_Picking a flower is like depriving of life at one go. It's like breaking the bonds between the earth and a child, like cutting the umbilical cord too soon._ _And it's more painful than anything else, just pure cry of an offspring that is lost forever, the emptiness impossible to fill. Persephone's fingers tightened on a stalk of a white narcissus and with naivety of a small child she pulled, feeling narcissus' tears in the form of dew running down her hand. She picked the forbidden flower, opened the Gate._

_Persephone is also a flower. Miserable seconds are enough. When Helios travels through the sky her fingers, her roots are off the ground, she hangs in the air and can never return, she can be lost forever. A white garland falls from her head, flowers tangle up in the gold hair. They leave unfading trail leading to the Land of the Dead. There's no warm sun, wheat never grows._

_..._

When Komugi crosses the threshold of the palace she doesn't feel fear, no. Everything is suppresses by something so mundane, so in-her-style and low. She only feels ubiquitous cold that seems to be alive in each room and freezes everything gradually, until there is nothing left but a cold statue with skin gray like marble and a stone smile unable to change. Komugi lies to herself that she came here to play Gungi and nothing, nothing is important as long as she has a game board and her checkers. It's not a true lie which purpose is the denial of truth, because it's actually enough for Komugi. She feels that Gungi is her heart and the meaning of her life, as if it pumped her blood and dictated the pulse. But still, there is something wrong. Inside she feels an empty room that has to be filled. Something is missing.

I wonder if the wheat has already grown, thinks Komugi. She remembers that air, thick with the smell, heavy with the high-temperature. Throttling air which didn't allow her to breathe. This air is different, is _empty_. Komugi feels like she was at the very top of a high mountain, there is nothing but her. Only emptiness drilling a hole in her, through and through.

Upon arrival Komugi was led to a large, spacious room, where she had a lot of space for herself - _too much, too much_. Also she was informed that when the time comes someone will come to take her to the King, so she can fulfill her role. Her role, Komugi thinks, walking around the room, back and forth. This role will be fulfilled, as long as she can rely on the game, on everything she has and can do.

Komugi has the impression that the room has no end. It has little to do with her house, with the field she visited. When she was there the wheat surrounded her on all sides, formed a wall that hid her, a refuge from the world. She could dive deep into it and knew that nothing could catch her, that she was safe.

But here she can't touch the walls, no matter how she tries the opposite ends are too far away from her arms. The space is so large that Komugi feels like someone took off her clothes and left completely naked, without a cover, but with a sense of coldness. Probably that's why I feel so empty, thinks Komugi, sitting down on the bed. This is not her house, not her air, not her world. She went to another world, to a darker one. Here is too cold, so she assumes that even the sun didn't saw this place. She was ripped, they took her name. "Komugi" died somewhere and all she knows is that she must be born again, find in the palace dark like her blind eyes her new "me".

...

_Fear is like fire that begins in the heart as a small spark and spreads slowly but methodically, devouring everything; all the courage, all the devotion, all that is important._ _Leaves powdery ashes and memory of who you were. You can't get hold of anything, wind kidnapped everything. And scatters the ashes._

_Persephone felt the same, felt the fear binding her hands like thick cords, digging into her velvety skin tighter and tighter, stripping the wrist to meat._

_Hades didn't need a birdcage to make her his singing canary, just the palace filled with the dead and Cerberus guarding the Gate. She became meek. Persephone could only touch the gilded bars of her cage, the only warm color in the darkness of the Underworld._

_And Hades, majestic Hades, terrifying Hades with skin as pale as skull and eyes black like depths of the cave, the man who every day smelled of a thousand dead never left her side, looked constantly at Persephone, though his eyes were covered with mist._

_..._

Komugi knows she can't afford to fear. Not here, not now. Not during the game. Fear always shrouds her mind like thick, gray fog, creating a labyrinth in which it is impossible to find a way. Komugi is a vast collection of corridors and meanders, every move in Gungi is one corner, every step is like opening the door. With all her might Komugi tries to draw a map in her head, tries to not lose the way. She can cry later, in her too big and cold as ice room. She can be afraid in the silence of the night which wounds her ears, when even the wind is not pounding out the window, as if it was afraid to wake the residents of the palace. But here hesitation means defeat and defeat is the end.

Therefore Komugi calms all her nerves, giving herself to the game. Every cell in her body, every heartbeat and breathing become parts of Gungi, the world is limited to her and a man sitting across from her. Nothing else matters... _no_, nothing else exists. Komugi continuously fights, fights to the death.

Self-possessed voice, methodical and aggressive play, adherence to rigid rules. Planning every movement, accuracy, long silence, saving words. Creating tactics is like building a big tower with a solid foundation that can, like Babel, surpass her and reach for the sky. This is the King whose Komugi met, this is who he was in her mind. Nothing disturbed her ideal image of the enemy, with him she races from move to move, from checker to checker. Komugi doesn't lie, never in front of him. He really is perfect, in every way. She doesn't know how he looks like, she doesn't know who he is when he comes out of their little Gungi world. But Komugi doesn't want to find out, the only thing that matters to her are those moments here and now, the board and war. It exists in her mind, only in this form the King is a part of her world. And he is the best player she has ever met, in this race she still feels his breath on her neck, closer and closer with each passing day.

That's why Komugi knows that she can't afford to fear, even if it's paralyzing her in every single moment spent alone in a cramped cage and closed walls. Because Komugi for the first time is really close to death. And breaking the line of defense will kill her. It frightens Komugi the most - not death, it is always together with people. Death just finishes a stage, maybe can even rescue her from being who she is, from the feelings of inferiority and humiliation. Komugi is afraid to lose the game and this fear is so powerful that it twists her stomach, makes it difficult to breathe, leaves a bitter taste of bile in her mouth.

If she will lose she is going to be a trash. This will mean that she is good for nothing. She will lose her identity. Abandon what defines her. Komugi is afraid of _this_ death. Even her name doesn't belong fully to her, Gungi is the only thing she chose. She doesn't want to lose, kill "Komugi" who was so hard to find.

So Komugi tries with all her heart and is not afraid. Even when the King threatens to cut off her hand. She just needs one to play. Even when she feels a sharp skewer pressed to her throat and blood running down her skin covered with goose bumps, she still doesn't persists and requires providing the first aid for the King. She never subsides. Because even in this cage she is determined to live.

...

_Until now Persephone didn't understand the passage of time. Her meadows were always coated with a soft layer of soothing greenery, flowers always bloomed, opening their colorful petals for the sun like a lover opens the door in the night for someone she loves. Her world was a constant, unchanging as nature. But now her whole body felt every sunrise and sunset, every full moon, every drop of rain falling on the ground, every falling leaf. Suddenly the time started to exist in her heart, passing inexorably._

_Hades was with her day and night, every morning she woke up to see his dark face, every night she fell asleep aware of his presence. With longing she was waiting for the day when she could run away, leaving behind Hades like a kid leaves a sand castle before the surge, aware that after his return he will find only the formless mass. But that day didn't come, the moon was circulating endlessly. Persephone was waiting and waiting and after some time it became a part of her, replaced the wheat in a natural, slow way, without taking, but with the conscious resignation._

_Hades also became a part of her life, someone obvious, someone stable. Persephone saw that he, too, rejected something. Loneliness which was hiding in his eyes. Now she was reflected in them, the Queen of the Underworld, in all her majesty._ _And Persephone more often thought that maybe she was Psyche, hidden by Eros in the farthest corner of the world, away from the eyes of other people. So when Hades gave her the pomegranate seeds Persephone knew what they mean. And ate them without a word._

_..._

Time passes slowly here, thinks Komugi. It was as if the clock has stopped and the hands of the clock only pretended to move to fool people, when in fact they have decided to take a joke and see how long it takes before they notice the truth. For Komugi each day begins the same way and ends the same way, there is no difference between them. But she doesn't mind, it seems to be fine. Every day she plays Gungi for hours, only with minor breaks. In the morning she raises a kingdom ruled only by her and the King, no one else is allowed here. The world with one door, known only to themselves, only they have rights to destroy it. Even if Komugi has never seen the sun something inside her makes her see those gentle rays illuminating the world painted in her imagination. It never happened before.

Time passes and Komugi begins to realize that the nature of fear has changed like a caterpillar that builds a fibrous cocoon around itself and closes it, so when it wakes up it can go to a new level. It was a slow, natural process in which there was nothing violent, rather surprising, because she wasn't able to see it before. That's what Komugi feels when she realizes that she is still afraid of losing, but only because it will mean the end of those peaceful days. It will annihilate everything that has become important to her, end this life.

Komugi doesn't understand why, but wholeheartedly she wishes that this moment can last forever. Winning requires more effort, more and more trouble, the King is coming to her inexorably and brings his check-mate, but Komugi tries even harder. If it leads her body to the limits, if she stands on the precipice she will jump and smash her body without regrets. She doesn't give up, because for the first time in her life she feels that she needs to protect something important, something what she wants.

Komugi isn't aware of it immediately, but the King is becoming a part of her life, makes her go back, builds a crossroads, pushes to the specified path. He becomes someone who she needs to continue her existence, as if she was born only for this moment, to dive in it completely. Komugi feels ashamed when she thinks about it, but it's hard to hide her tears running down her cheeks, they seem to be her soul escaping through her eyes. It is difficult to control her emotions when for the first time they flood her with such force, when the feelings hidden in the heart seem to be as heavy as a rock. It fills her body, becomes a separate existence. She is new Komugi inside old Komugi, real and true. She discovers it after many hardships.

Yes, decides Komugi. No matter what happens, she will be here, because here is her Kingdom.

...

_You can't lose yourself and expect that the house will be the same place as before. Because there is no place that is the same for two different people. Emotions, feelings, memories, never-ending stream of everyday life trudging forward, finding its rhythm. It shows us the differences between home and prison, changes places within seconds._

_Persephone left the World of the Dead, but she had the impression that she had blinded. She needed a blindfold that would cover her, because the sun became too bright for her. She needed a coat, which could be her refuge, because hot air burned her delicate skin. The world came back to life with every step, but this was no longer her world. Not only her house had changed. There were many worlds, each was different. _

_Half a year, this is how long Persephone can stay on the surface. But nothing was the same. When autumn came she returned to the World of the Dead, sit on the throne next to Hades. This was now her place._

_..._

Komugi is no longer afraid. Never again. The wheat has probably wilted, autumn came long time ago. The harvest time passed, a sickle cut the stem. Once Komugi was worried because she felt like she was dying a little. But now she realizes that next summer will come. Nothing fades forever. Maybe next time she can ask Meruem-sama if they can play Gungi on the field where wheat grows? They will play and listen to the whispers of wind, she is sure he'll like it.

Then Komugi feels calm, no longer balancing between Komugi-nature and Komugi-player. Meruem-sama holds her so she won't be forced to choose, he becomes her balance. Komugi knows that now everything is alright, she will not fall. She leaves all the bad things behind.

Komugi squeezes his hand a little tighter and smiles. She whispers into his ear her last words and feels the cold floor. And thinks it's time for Persephone to go to the World of the Dead. There will be two thrones, one for the king and one for the queen. The table and the Gungi board. Outside the window the wheat will sing. This is her kingdom.


End file.
